During the latter half of the 2010’s, there was an increased interest in the political
tradition of “Democratic Socialism” and its political proponents, particularly in countries
like the United States of America and England. In the USA, this took the form of the rapid growth
of the organisation known as the “Democratic Socialists of America”, or DSA, and the electoral
campaign surrounding the self-described democratic socialist senator, Bernie Sanders. In England this
interest came about as a result of Jeremy Corbyn, another self-described democratic socialist, with
his leadership over the Labour Party and the rise of his supporting political movement, Momentum.
However, within the wider context of the tradition of democratic socialism, these two movements are
relatively unremarkable apart from the fact that they emerged in developed, Western imperialist
countries. In fact, there are several so-called “democratic socialist” parties and organisations
which hold governmental power in the world today, such as the Broad Front in Chile, the Liberty and
Refoundation Party in Honduras, or even the ruling PDP-Laban Party in the Philippines under the
infamously fascistic Rodrigo Duterte. Democratic socialism, whether as a coherent tradition or
just a buzzword, is a term that’s used by a wide variety of movements across the political spectrum
to describe themselves all over the world today. This begs the question: what is “democratic
socialism”? Where did it come from? Why do these movements refer to themselves as
“democratic socialists”? And more importantly, why isn’t democratic socialism enough?
Today we’re gonna answer these questions and more.
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Now, in general, democratic socialists are differentiated as a socialist tradition by
their committed belief in the use of parliamentary reform to bring about
their vision of common ownership. Democratic socialism first appeared as a political ideology
through the French “Démocrate-Socialistes”, members of La Montagne, an electoral party
in the Second French Republic which formed in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolutions.
The party took its namesake from the revolutionary Montagne party of Maximilien Robespierre during
the First French Republic. Its message was one of a Christian socialist utopia.
However, despite its radical rhetoric and clear historical inspiration,
this new, democratic socialist Montagne would fall far short of the revolutionary standard
set by Robespierre’s party. Choosing to take the route of pure electoralism and reformism,
the party’s aim was to come to power through legislative election on a program of tax cuts.
While achieving a sizeable portion of the vote in 1849, the party never achieved the victory it
predicted, and by the time of the coup d’etat of Napoleon III and the overthrow of the Republic,
it was completely powerless. Karl Marx criticised the futility of the democratic socialists’ focus
on parliamentary methods when he wrote that “If their impotence in parliament could no longer
be doubted, they were entitled now to confine their actions to outbursts of moral indignation
and blustering declamation”. He even went as far as to describe the new, democratic
socialist Montagne as a “farce” in comparison to the original, revolutionary Montagne of 1793.
Also of note is that the first use of the term “social democrat”, was by Marx in the description
of this party. Since then, the use of the terms “social democrat” and “democratic socialist” have
become almost synonymous, although they’re often differentiated nowadays in that “social democrats”
supposedly favour reform of capitalism alone, while “democratic socialists” proclaim to favour
reform of capitalism until a new form of society, socialism, is achieved. What this actually means
in practice is… well, unclear, but in general a “democratic socialist” is usually considered to be
the next step to the left of a “social democrat”. Despite the failure of the French democratic
socialists to achieve state power and create a utopian socialist society,
democratic socialism would go on to spread like wildfire throughout Europe and further afield.
The Italian Socialist Party was established as a democratic socialist party in 1892. The Socialist
Party of America was set up in 1901 and went on to see much growth in the pre-war era under the
leadership of Eugene V. Debs. The Labour Party in Britain was founded in 1900, and won seats
in the House of Commons in 1902. In 1904, the first true electoral victory by a self-described
democratic socialist party took place, with the election of Chris Watson in Australia,
representing the Labour Party in that country. However, despite the lofty promises of democratic
socialism (supposedly granting all the benefits of communism with none of the harsh realities
of the revolutionary struggle required to actually get there), the first democratic
socialist government was a reactionary mess with little-to-no redeeming, socialist qualities.
Chris Watson was a devout colonialist and white supremacist, and key supporter and architect of
the apartheid policies which would later be known as “White Australia”. In 1905 Watson
passed a new policy in the Australian Labour Party calling for “racial purity” in Australia. However,
by then the party was already out of power, as Watson’s government had collapsed within the year.
A coloniser, white supremacist, architect of apartheid, and figurehead of a British
settler-state. And while certainly an extreme example, Chris Watson was a dark
forebearer of the future disasters of democratic socialists’ attempts at governance to come.
The so-called “democratic socialists” who would take up government in the former half of the
20th century would include names such as the ill-fated Kerensky government in Russia, which
in part due to its hated policy of continuing Russian involvement in the First World War,
was ultimately overthrown by the first true worker’s revolution on the 7th of November,
1917. This would mark the beginning of democratic socialism’s true ideological identity, in which it
would be defined in opposition to revolutionary Bolshevism, and openly take up the banner of
reformism through due process, in accordance with the ruling bourgeoisie’s standards.
Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders have, by all accounts, continued to uphold this democratic
socialist tradition of promising to abolish the excesses of capitalism
through democratic electoral reforms. However, they also appear to carry with them all of the
aforementioned problems which have plagued their movement’s history. Bernie Sanders in particular
broke many a heart when it became clear to his supporters that he was no socialist visionary.
As “left-wing” as his rhetoric had seemed, Sanders proved himself a fervent defender of the American
imperialist system. In a 2014 interview, Sanders promised that if elected president, he would
“support the security of Israel, help Israel fight terrorist attacks against that country
and maintain its independence”, thus supporting the American imperialist policy of assisting in
the Palestinian genocide by arming the Israeli settler state against the Palestinian people.
There’s apparently no ideological inconsistency here for Democratic Socialism. Bernie Sanders
is perfectly in line with the likes of Lyndon B. Johnson, the imperialist mass murderer and
“Butcher of Vietnam” who, while invading and bombing the people of Vietnam, promised the
American working class a bigger share of the imperialist plunder through his “Great Society”
program, which Sanders expressly upholds as inspiration for his “fair deal” for the American
people. Just as LBJ would happily bomb Vietnamese children and give a higher share of the profits
to the American middle and working class, Bernie Sanders clearly has no qualms with applying the
same repugnant logic to the people of Palestine. This, Sanders claims, is the meaning of democratic
socialism. “I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the
middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal”,
or, to put it more honestly, he believes they deserve a bigger slice of the imperialist pie.
Jeremy Corbyn, although less ardently pro-imperialist than Sanders, also has
sympathies towards imperialist heroes of his own. Despite his rhetoric and support for causes such
as Palestine, it’s important to remember that Corbyn served as the political representative
of the pro-imperialist Labour Party; the party which oversaw invasions Ireland,
Korea, Iraq, and many others. And of course, in Corbyn’s own residence you’ll find a bust of
former democratic socialist Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Considered the first true “democratic
socialist” leader of the British Empire, Attlee is responsible for quaint concessions such as
the nationalisation of the postal service. How nice. He is also responsible for the
mass imperialist murder by the British Empire in Malaysia during the so-called “Malay Emergency”,
in which the British military forces sprayed herbicides en-masse on civilian areas,
and were responsible for the beheading of civilians… so there’s that.
Corbyn also sings his praises for one of many English imperialist butchers of Ireland,
the “democratic socialist” Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who, while elected on a program of this
“democratic socialism”, sent British troops to Ireland and oversaw atrocities such as the Bloody
Sunday massacre, an event which Corbyn has often spoken of, but failed to mention the role of his
own party in. To Corbyn, just like Sanders, it doesn’t matter if the wealth was gained through
imperialism, only that Wilson made England, in his words, “more equal”, through dishing out
fairer shares of the loot and plunder. Likewise, little can be said positively
of the “democratic socialist” experiments in non-imperialist nations. In the oppressed nations,
democratic socialism generally either results in a valiant failure, as seen in Chile through
the Allende government, or in a completely reactionary, corrupt comprador regime such
as the fascist nightmare of Duterte’s current administration in the Philippines – which, yes,
also proclaims itself to be democratic socialist. Democratic socialist methods have been embraced
by revisionist communist parties too, such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist),
a near-completely electoralist and reformist party which attacks the Indian revolution
through deadly militias formed under its local government such as the Kerala Thunderbolts.
Needless to say, even in the oppressed nations, democratic socialism has never once succeeded in
establishing a socialist state that has been capable of fulfilling its own promises
and protecting its gains for the working class from capitalist offensives, whether they be from
capitalists at home or from abroad. While the ideals and rhetoric of
democratic socialism all seem perfect (demands such as common ownership,
increased democratic power for the working class, and progressive reforms that will eventually lead
to a peaceful replacement of capitalism with a new world are far from reactionary at the outset),
but it’s clear that throughout their history democratic socialist governments have almost never
lived up to any of these promises. Meanwhile, the proponents of democratic socialism appear
to be either blissfully unaware of the crimes and errors of democratic socialist governments
before them, or even openly endorse them. Democratic socialism is doomed to fail as,
ultimately, from its conception, and since its beginnings in France to its current government
leadership in Chile, it aims to become the political representative of the bourgeois state,
whether as representative of the imperialist bourgeoisie or the comprador bourgeoisie,
rather than overthrowing and replacing that capitalist state with a revolutionary dictatorship
of the proletariat to secure genuine working-class power. As Lenin stated, “Everything is illusory
except power”, and as Mao elaborated, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”.
Without fully dismantling the bourgeois state apparatus and putting in its place
new proletarian fighting forces, any gains made by a progressive movement can simply be taken
back at any time by the capitalists’ armies, police forces, and so on. This fundamental
flaw – the complete inability to protect progress - renders it impossible for so-called
Democratic Socialist movements to ever actually advance beyond capitalism and into socialism.
So, if the democratic will of the people is that a socialist system should be established,
then the self-defeating ideology of Democratic Socialism itself, ironically, becomes an obstacle
in the way of the fulfilment of both the democracy and the socialism it supposedly strives for.
History hasn’t been kind to “democratic socialists” because of this defect in
their theory. While Karl Marx criticised the strategies of democratic socialism in 1852,
the formula of their failure hasn’t been corrected or evolved in any meaningful way
since. To this day, democratic socialists continue to wither away in bourgeois parliaments,
hoping to one day become the benevolent chiefs of their respective capitalist state apparatuses.
At their best: politically impotent dreamers. At their worst: fascistic servants of imperialism.
The supposedly “radical” reputations of Democratic Socialists come largely from their opponents.
Corbyn and Sanders for example are often derided as communists or revolutionaries, meanwhile both
preach blunt messages of due process and careful reform – ultimately playing by the rules of the
bourgeoisie which have been designed specifically to protect bourgeois class relations. As Marx
pointed out when speaking of those original French Democratic Socialists: “When the ‘red specter,’
continually conjured up and exercised by the counterrevolutionaries finally appears, it appears
not with the Phrygian cap of anarchy on its head, but in the uniform of order, in red breeches.”
The theory of Democratic Socialism has dismantled countless progressive movements either from
the outside, such as with the destruction of the Spartakus Uprising by the German Social Democrats,
or from within, such as through the rapid internal degeneration of the Irish Labour Party.
In all cases, democratic socialism consistently pushes the left to the defanged, futile, reformist
path of order in red breeches – ultimately, the path of capitalism under a red flag.
There’s a quote that’s often misattributed to Albert Einstein which states that, “The definition
of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
Regardless of who actually said this, the history of the Democratic Socialist movement shows that
it has never and will never be a viable path to any kind of genuine liberation from the
chains of the capitalist-imperialist system. In contrast to this, scientific socialists
test our theory through practice in the laboratory of class struggle. Where there is success,
we build on this and move forward – such as from the examples of the successes of the Bolshevik
Revolution and the Chinese Revolution. Where there is failure, we don’t simply try the same
old failed strategies over and over again until they magically bring about the utopian visions
that we’ve conjured up in our minds and hope to impose upon reality, but we instead discard
the methods which have failed to advance the working-class movement in material reality,
including the Democratic Socialist project. While many Democratic Socialists come from
places of good faith and sincerely progressive intentions, it’s important to help these comrades
realise that their vision for a better future that’s both democratic and socialist can’t be
realised through the confines of this utopian ideology which has failed time and time again.
Those who seek to genuinely advance the working class and oppressed masses towards
complete liberation from the tyranny of class society must come to realise
that our only hope lies in the sole course which throughout history has shown any real,
meaningful, lasting success: the revolutionary path based on Marxist scientific socialism.
Right, thanks very much for watching this video. Hopefully you’ve found it useful in one way or
another. It should go without saying that this video is not a criticism of democracy or socialism
that is democratic in any way. In fact, I’d argue that modern revolutionary socialism is far more
deeply democratic than anything hitherto even conceivable under bourgeois society. Especially
with the advances made by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism like the Mass Line and Cultural Revolution,
but also its deeper understanding of the party and democratic centralism, two-line struggle,
the continuation of class struggle until class society itself has been abolished – even if that
means the people rising up against the Communist Party itself, bombarding the party headquarters,
as we say - and so on and so forth. For more on this, I recommend checking
out the Politics in Command channel, particularly the video “Mass Line:
The Communist Method of Leadership”, which you’ll find linked in the description box below.
As always, thank you to the relentlessly enduring supporters on Patreon who continue
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